Friday, 6 February 2015

I was watching Oireachtas Report last night and they had a segment on the public accounts committee. Irish Water was given approximately 400 million euro from the government last year. There is approximately 380 million earmarked for this year and 430 million next year if I remember correctly. I'm not sure of the exact share but some of the money is coming from what would normally go to county councils around the country. Guess where the rest of that money is coming from? ROAD TAX. So anyone who paid road tax last year will already have paid twice before they ever get a water bill. I thought property tax was supposed to fund local councils. Does this mean that the funding was taken when property tax was introduced because they expected property tax to go straight to councils, or did they divert property tax that should have gone to councils? I didn't get the full story. But, essentially, those who pay water charges and are up to date with all taxes will be paying 3 times and all they have to show for it is €12,100,000,000 spent on a hated quango that is going to borrow billions more than the government could invest in water supply and waste water infrastructure before a pipe is laid and ridiculous water meters installed by a company set up in what I believe to be a corrupt manner.
There was no leadership or progressive thinking on this issue. The troika said jump and the government said how high. We need to elect a government at the next election that will work hard to give back what the people are entitled to and will give the people that elected them what they need before any eu, troika or other outside influence demands. Not Lucinda Creighton's party because that'll just be "Fine Gael light". The same old fashioned politics, minus a whip, with eddie hobbes' economic policy.
Those who think protest marchers are trouble makers trying to get out of paying bills are wrong. There are fringe groups trying to use the marches to muscle in with their own agenda. I admit this is unfortunate and wrong. But the majority of us are fed up with how we're governed and want democratic change and taking a stand to show up the mistakes that this and previous governments made.